


A Whiff of Excitement on the Home Front

by navaan



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Noir
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Flirting, Innuendo, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, Pining, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:07:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28510158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: Steve meets Tony Stark for the first time - and it's not for the last time.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 11
Kudos: 74
Collections: 2020 Captain America/Iron Man Holiday Exchange





	A Whiff of Excitement on the Home Front

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cap Iron Man Community](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Cap+Iron+Man+Community).



> For the following community gift prompt chosen by two helpful souls (you know who you are, you lovelies): _Marvel Noir: “Bullet holes.” “You did say you wanted some excitement."_

Steve had dreamed of this moment for a long time - and for the longest time it had been nothing but a dream, a fantasy that would never come true. In his imagination he had met Tony Stark, hero of the Tony Stark Adventures countless times.

Imagination had no way of preparing him for this though.

“Private Rogers?”

“Yes, sir?” His mouth was incredibly dry and for once even Sergeant Ames noticed that Steve wasn't going to have a sassy comeback. In fact he was standing at attention in his apron, feeling like the fool at a party, fidgeting nervously with the peeling knife he was holding.

Stark - _the man himself_ \- wasn’t even paying attention. He looked much too tired to care for much of anything at this very moment and he wasn’t giving Steve, his dirty apron or the mountain of as of yet unpeeled potatoes any of his attention. A blessing maybe, Steve thought but couldn’t help being disappointed.Things had always been exciting and adventurous in his imagination. And, of course, Tony Stark had always looked at him with interest in excitement.

 _Just my luck_ , Steve thought. _that I would meet him like this and not out in the field where I can show him what Captain America can do. When they ever let me out in the field that is…_

He nearly sighed. This was a reality and not a pulp novel - even if so much of his life recently played out more like science fiction than reality.

“Get Mr. Stark something to ear. He’s going to stay with us for a few days.” The sergeant gave him an unimpressed voice over, then looked back to nod at Stark who gave the sergeant an equally unimpressed glance in turn and then watched the man stalk off in silence.

“I’m sure,” Steve said with a meekness he hadn’t ever heard in his own voice, “with your reputation you’ll survive the food.”

For the first time Stark’s eyes turned to him, latched on his face like piercing flashlights cutting apart the dark of night - _they’re like sapphires, why do none of the novels say they’re like sapphires?_ \- and gave him a once over.

“They seem to be feeding you well enough,” Stark said and there was the smallest trace of a grin forming on his lips as he finished his appraisal of Steve.

Steve was glad that Bucky wasn’t around because if the kid had been in sight at this very moment he would have broken down laughing when heat crept into Steve’s cheeks. Captain America was blushing like a virgin on her wedding night… Or, well, like Steve blushed when he was flustered like he hadn’t been in a long time.

“Sir?” he asked stiffly and watched Stark lean his head to side and smile benevolently.

What would the man thin if he knew that just a few months ago, Steve had been a think beanpole unfit for military service.

“I’m sure I’ll survive the rations,” Stark said. “Don’t bother with special treatment. Whatever you boys are fed, I’m sure I got worse at more times in my life than I could count.”

Coming from anyone else, Steve would have taken it for self-important bragging - and who knew? The Daily Bugle always made Stark sound like he was an arrogant money bag with an overactive fantasy.

Steve didn’t want to believe that though - and Stark’s tone was a little too neutral and exhausted to make it sound like someone who wanted to go on telling about his exploits.

Maybe that was why Steve sprung into action, slapping some of the muddy brown “stew” they’d had today on a tray.

Stark looked at it without enthusiasm and Steve had to wonder if he wasn’t thinking better of his request for equal treatment. But he grabbed the tray without comment and stalked to the nearest table.

For the next few minutes he tried not to cut off his own fingers while watching Stark covertly enough without him noticing. Or at least he hoped he was being covert. He was good at secrets after all.

He wondered what exactly what brought someone like Stark to Camp Lehigh at such an hour - and what had the famous adventurer been up to that he was looking this exhausted. The shadows cast by the dim lamplight in the mess hall made the shadows under his eyes stand out even more.

Was Steve only noticing them now because his sparkling blue eyes seemed only dark in the distance?

_Stop watching his eyes, Steve.This is the army. You’re Captain America. This is the worst possible place to moon over a handsome fellow - even if he’s the handsome fellow of your dreams._

Beating himself up over the impropriety of his thoughts, he didn’t hear Stark approaching to return the tray - empty and scrubbed clean even though Steve had seen that he hadn’t eaten with an appetite - he was momentarily so surprised that the knife slipped on the potato he was peeling and he cut his finger.

He hissed.

Stark looked up at him, raised an eyebrow as he sucked on the cut.

“Careful there,” he said. “Preoccupied?”

His heart missed a beat and he looked up sheepishly to meet the eyes he was trying not to think about.

“Just clumsy,” he said sheepishly.

“Or bored?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, strapping soldier like you probably could use more excitement than he gets here peeling potatoes.”

He chuckled. “Maybe,” he said and thought about the last three days that he’d spent in New York hunting down enemy spies who had been sent to sabotage a laboratory working on military secrets.

No, in all honesty this was a well earned break - and with Stark standing right there like the perfect mystery man out of a novel Steve couldn’t say he was at all bored.

“I’m sure I’ll get more excitement than I bargained for as soon as I ship out,” he said and thought: _If they finally let me. Only super solder or not, they can’t keep me here forever._ “But yeah, a little more excitement than peeling potatoes wouldn’t do harm.”

“I’m sure,” Stark said and smiled, nodded and turned around on his heels to leave.

Steve stared at the cut on his finger that had already stopped bleeding but throbbed slightly, feeling like an idiot. Bucky would laugh at him when he ever found out how he had met Tony Stark just to look like a fool.

* * *

He saw Stark around Camp a couple of times in the next few days but Stark never looked his way.

“You’re watching him again,” Bucky whispered and chuckled.

“Everyone is.”

“I noticed. Quite few soldiers are Marvels fans.”

“Aren’t you?” Steve asked his sixteen year old partner in secret super soldier work.

“I love me some space aliens and murder,” the kid sad and grinned. “That dusting off of old stuff from desert ruins isn’t for me.”

“But you read _Tony Stark and Desert Diamond_?”

“Maybe,” Bucky said and laughed. “I did read the new one with the armor. Think that’s real?”

Steve shrugged. He had heard some rumours about Stark in the field but there were so many stories going around that it was hard to tell what was just Marvel inspired make believe. Stark was a brilliant engineer too - even if that had been pushed off the news pages by all his Tony Stark Adventures exploits.

“Maybe,” he said and then nearly jumped out of his skin in a very un-super-soldier-like fashion when someone chuckled behind them.

“I assure you, it’s very real,” the tall man behind them said - and Steve knew immediately that this was Jim Rhodes, Tony’s trusted friend, adventurer in his own right and from all he’d been hearing, Rhodes had joined the air force and made a name for himself as ace pilot.

“It is?” Bucky asked, completely unperturbed by them having been overheard.

Steve was feeling like he was losing his touch with how people were managing to sneak up on him.

But he really wanted to know the answer to this question too and was just about to open his mouth to ask about it, when he saw Stark wander over. He amiably patted his friend Rhodes on the shoulder, sharing a warm smile with him.

“Good to see you in one piece, Jim. Did you bring back the plane?”

“Better than that. Brought back the plane, the girl and also the maps of Hydra’s bases. Not sure how long they’ll be useful though. Iron Man better head out again soon.”

Stark nodded, still smiling that very warm smile that reached his eyes and made them shine with a much darker blue than before.

“Private Rogers,” he said then and gave Steve a half-salute. “Did they allow you to abandon the potatoes?”

He laughed, too embarrassed to even know how to answer that. After all being a bad solider was part of his cover, but also he admitted something that suited him better than mindlessly following orders.

“Perhaps we’re getting something that’s less like glue for a few days, Mr. Stark,” he quipped and got a surprised smile from Stark. “But I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”

“They’re just trying to prepare you for the front,” Stark quipped back. “Making sure you have iron stomachs.”

Rhodes laughed. “The one thing that’s not armoured for you.”

“Ha, ha,” Stark said.

“So it is true?” Bucky asked eagerly. “Iron Man exists?”

“I am Iron Man, kid! I very much exist,” Stark said and then grinned. “Want to see?”

“Yeah,” Rhodes said and shrugged with his arms wide, “let’s show around our secret weapons to anyone who has read a Marvel book.”

“Anyone who has read a Marvels book already knows about Iron Man anyway, Jim. That’s why I think our last few editions have been selling out before magazines had hit the stands.” He grinned at Steve and Bucky and winked. “I bet half the German army is looking for clues.”

Steve laughed and relaxed a little.

That day he and the kid really got to see the hulking armor that Stark swore to them could fly. It looked like a terrible monster from a science fiction movie and Steve had no idea how anyone would be able to navigate it, make it walk - let alone leave the ground behind and sore into the sky.

Stark patted a hand on the breastplate of the thing.

“My trusted companion,” he declared gravely. “Keeps me safe and sound.”

“Well,” Rhodes said softly, as if he was disagreeing with the sentiment. He gave Stark a long significant look.

Bucky jumped forward to look at the armor. “How is it powered? It can’t have an engine?”

“Ha,” Rhodes said.

“More like a battery.”

“More like both of you have a battery.”

Steve finally stepped up too, put an arm against the metal. It was cold and strange. “Like a man made from metal.”

“It’s in the name, yeah,” Stark pointed out and grinned. He looked less exhausted, more alert - and he’d been grinning all the way through. Steve liked it very much.

He smiled back, when Stark, looking at Steve’s hand on the metal, knocked his knuckles against the plate.

Steve had the urge to ask, why they’d been shown this - and share his own secret in turn.

Too bad he was sworn to keep his identity secret.

* * *

He didn’t see Stark for over a week. He had left the camp with Rhodes and Steve didn’t expect he’d see him again. After all there was a war on and Tony Stark was busy.

* * *

He woke up in his tent - the kind of waking up that let him go from fully asleep to fully awake in an instant. His muscles were straining, and he was ready to strike at anyone who was going to come at him, even if he couldn’t make them out in the dark.

“Stay down,” someone said, and for whatever reason, it didn’t sound like a threat.

There was a muffled sound, a flash in the dark, and then someone was on him.

He threw them off, toppled them on the floor.

Then a light went on.

He was staring at Tony Stark, pinned down by Steve’s slightly bullied frame on his tent’s floor.

“What?”

Above his head there were two neat holes in the wall right above his bed where his head would have been a moment before.

“Bullet holes?”

“You did say you wanted some excitement.”

“That was weeks ago!”

Stark laughed.

Steve realised how that had sounded.

“I knew there was something odd about you, Private. Now get your shield and show me what you got.”

His heart missed a beat. “What?”

“Cut healing too fast. Awesome shoulders even when you try to slouch all day… Perfect reflexes you just showed me. You’re Captain America.”

Steve blinked.

“Also,” Tony said and sounded like he was having way too much fun, “the Hydra agent trying to kill Captain America going straight for you, is a bit of a giveaway.”

“Oh,” Steve said softly.

There were feet shifting and breaking into a run in the corridor.

“Shield,” Tony suggested.

“Yes, sir,” he said and grinned down, before he moved over towards the chest under his bed that held his shield.

He got it our and started to get out of his shirt, revealing the red white and blue uniform underneath. Stark was watching him from the floor and unconsciously licked his lips.

“What?”

“You cut quite the figure,” Stark said and then grinned, before he picked himself up from the floor.

“You look like you’d like to get me out of my clothes when it’s not for work,” Steve said boldly, and it was probably the adrenaline galloping away with him. There was no time to take it back or wait for Stark’s face to show disgust. Captain America pulled back the cowl and was halfway out the door. When Stark wasn’t following, Steve turned.

“Not for work, huh?” Stark said with a thoughtful gleam in his eye. “Let’s discuss that after we catch our would-be-killer.”

Then he rushed out into the corridor gun in hand, and Steve fell into step beside him, grinning from ear to ear.

Finally, he thought, some real excitement.


End file.
